News-Record.com

Three questions:

1. Would these proposed changes hurt the kids who are attending school as they are supposed to do? It's possible that a longer Christmas break would lead to kids forgetting more of what they learned first semester. It also might make it tougher for those kids to get summer jobs if they have to start school two weeks earlier than everyone else. Their needs should be considered, too.

2. Isn't there a compulsory attendance law in North Carolina? Shouldn't the Alamance County Schools try to enforce the law, rather than changing the law to appease the rule-breakers?

3. This is more of a rhetorical question, but I wonder how many of these students (and their parents) are in this country illegally?

It sounds to me like this might be another case of pandering to the illegal alien lobby - just like Erskine Bowles' idiotic plan to give in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants.

1. They're not proposing a longer Christmas break. The school year would be the same length, just moved up two weeks.

2. Yes. But I don't think compulsary attendance laws bar parents from taking their kids to visit grandma. Lots of families in High Point rent their homes during furniture market and take the kids to Disneyworld. I haven't heard of truant officers chasing them to Orlando.

3. Some of 'em, no doubt.

No one is arguing that these children should be barred from visiting grandma, Doug, and you know that. Try a little harder next time, please.

But is it really so hard-hearted to suggest these students should be back in school by the scheduled start of second semester? Students get a two-week break - that's plenty of time for out-of-town trips. It's a lot more time off than most people in the working world receive.

When I was in school many moons ago, my parents scheduled our family vacations around the school calendar and made sure I was back in school when Christmas break ended. They didn't expect the school system to alter its schedule to accomodate us.

I totally agree that the parents are failing these kids by not making them attend every single day.

However, it involves more than the Hispanic kids. If you look at the state report card, you'll see that every ethnic group at Cummings underperforms the state average for that ethnic group. Administrators think this change will help all kids, at least in the first semester, by eliminating the break between classes and exams.

Doug, you know I like you, but you just completely contradicted yourself.

If this issue truly was a case of "Administrators think this change will help all kids," the editorial department of the N&R wouldn't be writing about it. School make scheduling changes all of the time, almost always routine and without incident. Those don't get written up in the editorial page, nor should they.

However, in your first post, you say administrators are considering this change because Mexican students aren't coming back to school on time after Christmas. It's not about "a change that will help all kids." If so, this proposal wouldn't be controversial. This is about changing the entire school's calendar to suit a particular group, many of whom aren't even legal residents of the U.S.

Personally, I believe the school calendar should be decided by local school boards and not the General Assembly. However, I also don't believe that government agencies, including schools, should cater to illegal immigrants.

I'm going to plead that "contradiction" is too strong an accusation, but I'll admit to shifting my emphasis. One reason is that it was late in the afternoon yesterday before I got to speak with Cummings co-principal Meg Sheehan. She stressed that it wasn't only the Mexican kids who miss school and not only they who could benefit from the schedule change. My view is that, if the local school officials think this can be a helpful move, they should be allowed to try it.